Samsung in €4m UCD research agreement

Samsung is to undertake a €4m, three-year, artificial intelligence research programme with UCD aimed at enabling it to create smarter and more personalised products.

The research will be carried out at UCD’s Insight Centre for Data Analytics — the €75m research centre joint initiative of UCD, UCC, NUI Galway and DCU.

“Until now, we have been living in what can be termed the era of ‘search’, but this is now changing due to converging technologies. Today, people are searching less, with recommendation features filling the gap,” said Baekjun Lim, head of Samsung’s data intelligence unit.

Recommender systems are increasingly affecting our day-to-day lives; influencing everything from the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the food we eat and the exercise we take.

“We are extremely excited about the opportunity to work with world-class experts in the field of recommendation systems at UCD, and we expect to see impactful results from this collaboration,” said Mr Lim.

The three-year project will be led by Professor Barry Smyth, Aonghus Lawlor and associate Professor Neil Hurley. It will involve a team of over 25 researchers and staff from UCD and Samsung and will result in the establishment of 12 research posts at UCD.

There will also be career placement opportunities at Samsung’s research facilities in the UK and South Korea on offer for students at the Insight Centre.

“Ireland has an excellent reputation in machine learning and recommender systems,” said Professor Smyth.